


Imago

by hectocotyle



Series: liquidmantis shenanigans [6]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Asexual Character, Corpse Desecration, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Disembowelment, Gore, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Necrophilia, Nonbinary Character, Overprotective Mantis, Pre-Relationship, Self-Harm, Torture, Vomiting, Wound Fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:31:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8531377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hectocotyle/pseuds/hectocotyle
Summary: The first time he deliberately sets out to inflict cruelty upon a human being, Mantis is nineteen years old and a fresh FBI recruit.[For a wish from the 2016 Xmas Supply Drop:"psycho mantis torturing someone (psychologically and/or physically)make it as depraved as possible please"Also, I realized partway through writing this that it works pretty well as a direct prequel to Hybristophilia, so there's that.]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrackenMouth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrackenMouth/gifts).



The first time he deliberately sets out to inflict cruelty upon a human being, Mantis is nineteen years old and a fresh FBI recruit.

Already he's brought dozens of violent criminals to justice, helping countless bereaved families and domestic abuse survivors in the process. He even allows himself a cautious measure of pride in his work. But spending his days immersed in the minds of the lowest of the low that good old _Homo sapiens_ has to offer has been wearing him down like nothing else he's ever experienced.

Predictably, it's yet another child abuse case that erodes the last of his resolve not to use his psychokinesis to harm another person except in self-defense.

As far as he's concerned, bastards like these gave up their right to that kind of consideration when they wrenched it away from those too small and vulnerable to fight back.

\----------

The aforementioned bastard is found dead in his cell the next morning, garroted with a length of wire. Police rule it a suicide—a spectacularly messy one at that. Mantis overhears remarks, both verbal and mental, that it's almost as if the victim were _trying_ to draw out his suffering.

After work he heads home to his crappy little apartment feeling fine. Great, even. Fucker got nothing more or less than what was coming to him.

He hovers in front of the bathroom mirror, attempting to tame his scraggly red hair. Over the past several months it's begun falling out in alarmingly large clumps, leaving behind ugly bare patches that are becoming harder and harder to conceal. He's somewhat in denial about the fact that he's just going to have to shave the rest of it off sooner or later since he flat-out refuses to wear a hat or a wig.

He casually lifts a hand to push the hair out of his face.

His fingers pause when they touch his slender neck.

Mantis starts vomiting inside his mask almost before he realizes he's nauseous. He rips it off and flings it aside as he careens over to the toilet, zigzagging through the air like a drunken fly.

He clutches the edges of the toilet and pukes his guts up, thin shoulders lurching violently, eyes streaming from the strain on his frail body. Unwelcome voices surge into his head without the mask's protection, doubling his misery. Because he barely eats to begin with, it's mostly froth and atrocious-tasting bile he brings up; then he just dry-heaves for a while, his head throbbing with the combined aches of dehydration and involuntary telepathy.

At last he collapses on the floor, panting and shivering weakly as the sweat cools on his flesh. The whole ordeal left his chest and shoulders as sore as if he'd been working out.

As soon as he's recovered enough to move, he dumps the vomit out of his mask, washes it out as best he can, and straps it back on, gladly taking the sour smell over the intruding voices.

Then he averts his eyes from his reflection and croaks, "Never again."

\----------

"Never" comes rather sooner than expected.

This time it's a serial arsonist responsible for no fewer than eight deaths and twenty-three hospitalizations. Three of those deaths and nine of those hospitalizations were kids in the single-digit age range.

Mantis justifies it to himself by resolving not to kill this one. Just make him feel what his victims felt, down to the most intimate detail, via highly sophisticated induced hallucination.

It isn't difficult. He has very vivid personal experience to draw on, after all.

Mantis has his fill and leaves the man trembling on the cold floor of his cell, whimpering hysterically. But when a guard stops to question him, he finds he can't explain what's wrong.

\----------

The months drag on. Mantis continues to dispense punishment as he sees fit, finding it easier and easier each time, until it seems ludicrous that he ever threw up from guilt. Eliminating the evidence of his involvement is child's play as well; some minor tampering with security footage here, a little memory-altering there.

In hindsight, it was probably inevitable that his disgust for these people would start to outweigh the sense of accomplishment he once derived from helping all those families. Really, the torture is the only thing that makes him feel anything these days, and that's hardly a legally sanctioned part of his job.

One night, alone in his apartment, he emerges from a numb daze to discover he's torn out what was left of his hair in bloody handfuls. So much for shaving, he thinks wryly.

Eventually he comes to his senses and quits the FBI. Over the following few years he drifts from place to place taking work wherever he can find it, but otherwise avoiding human contact as much as possible. In particular, his services as a hitman prove quite popular, given how pitifully helpless ordinary people are against him.

Mantis has long since accepted this arrangement as the culmination of his hollow, unpleasant existence when he receives the message that changes everything.

<Psycho Mantis?>

His scarred head whips up from the pillow of the uncomfortable hotel bed. The voice is emanating from the lobby two floors down, and a quick psychic scan tells him the speaker lacks malicious intent. Still, he bristles at the nerve of this stranger, talking directly into his head as if uninvited thoughts aren't a fact of day-to-day life for him.

<I'm here to extend an invitation from my commanding officer, Liquid Snake. Sorry about the unconventional delivery, but there's classified information involved and it was decided that having you lift it straight from my brain would be safer than discussing it over the phone.>

Mantis has half a mind to inform this interloper where this "Liquid Snake" bozo can shove his invitation, but then again it isn't as if he has anything better to do than hear him out. Anyway, work is work.

He taps into the stranger's thoughts in greater depth, and a brilliant constellation of knowledge unfurls before his all-seeing mind's eye. He zeroes in on key bits of information with the casual ease of long experience, flitting from one to the next like an electrical impulse sparking from neuron to neuron.

Within a fraction of a second he locates the memory to be replayed and opens it up.

And jerks upright on the bed with a soft gasp.

"It's been quite a while, hasn't it, Tretij?" says memory-Eli with a boyish grin that makes Mantis's heart thump achingly against his ribs. "Ah, but I'm told you're called Psycho Mantis now. You know, that'd work quite well as a FOXHOUND codename. Perhaps you'd consider joining us." He explains the relevant details of the organization. "I've heard a great deal about your accomplishments with the FBI and believe we'd be incredibly lucky to have you. Please do give it some thought." And with that, the message cuts off.

Mantis takes in a few shaky breaths, collecting himself. <How soon does he want me?> he asks just to confirm his presence to the FOXHOUND representative.

<How soon can you be ready to leave?> the other replies.

\----------

A couple of days later, Mantis arrives in mainland Alaska by plane and immediately boards a helicopter bound for the Fox Islands.

"Psycho Mantis, huh?" says the pilot as Mantis gets situated. "The boss is _real_ excited to see you."

"Is that so?" says Mantis, barely managing to keep his voice from jumping an octave. He stuffs his luggage containing his few belongings under the seat—form-fitting clothes, mostly, and a handful of books he couldn't bear to part with, including the dog-eared old Czech-language volume on neopteran insects where he first read about the species _Psychomantis borneensis_.

"Oh, yeah." The pilot grins over his shoulder at him. "Hasn't shut up about you for days, matter of fact. Keeps yammering on and on about how everything has to be perfect for when you get there. You guys old friends or what?"

"Something like that," Mantis replies, experiencing a confusing double pang of joy and nausea. It sure sounds like Eli is going to a lot of trouble on his behalf. What if Mantis doesn't live up to his expectations? "So. Pretty cool that a guy I sort of grew up with got to be leader of a group like FOXHOUND," he says to distract himself from his misgivings.

"No one was really surprised. Liquid's pretty much a genius," says the pilot. "I heard he joined the British SAS when he was just eighteen, youngest person ever to make it in. CQC, scuba diving, manning tanks and choppers, parachuting, rappelling—you name it, he's the best of the best at it."

Mantis shrinks a bit more into his seat with each talent the pilot rattles off. He can't help thinking how his psychic powers are the only thing remotely impressive about him, and it's not like he did anything to earn those.

He stares silently out the window at the dim gray sky, watching the snow whip past. Despite being bundled in several layers of warm clothing, he can't stop shivering.

"Hey, look," the pilot speaks up again after a few hours, jolting him out of another one of his deep dazes. "The boss came out to personally meet you."

"Great," Mantis says too brightly, unable to bring himself to let his mind touch Eli's just yet.

They touch down, the door opens and there he stands, his fair hair and the long tail of his coat whipping in the copter's thundering wind, his powerful arms folded in a way that effortlessly projects authority, his face very stern and very handsome and oh boy was this a mistake.

Mantis is seriously considering pretending to be some other weedy, gas-masked psychic until their eyes meet and Eli's steely expression softens into a big goofy smile.

"Mantis!" he exclaims, crushing him in a hug without hesitation, and it occurs to him that until now he hadn't received anything resembling human affection in over a decade. He just about melts into Eli's arms. His mental resistance evaporates like mist on a clear summer day, allowing their long-dormant psychic link to blaze triumphantly back into existence, and he knows he'll always remember this moment as one of the happiest of his life. It feels like coming home.

<Our first time seeing each other in forever and your immediate reaction is to try to break every bone in my body. I see how it is,> Mantis thought-speaks, not wanting to have to compete with the roar of the helicopter blades.

Eli laughs and lets him go.

<Shall I take your bags, my good sir?> he says, pretending to reach for them, and Mantis rolls his eyes. <Kidding. It does seem rude not to at least offer, though.>

< _Au contraire_ ,> Mantis says mischievously, <allow _me_. > With his mind he picks up both his luggage and Eli.

After a bit of startled flailing, Eli folds his arms behind his head and crosses his legs like he's relaxing at the beach. <Very well. I grant you the privilege of carrying me in public.>

Mantis snorts. <You're too generous, Boss.> The word sends a nostalgic pulse of pride through him. The way he uses it for Eli, it's as much a term of endearment as an acknowledgment of rank.

They float over to the nearest entrance to the compound, getting some weird looks from sentries along the way. Eli shrugs at them as if there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary about this method of transportation.

"I had one of the good rooms cleared out for you," Eli says once they're inside and Mantis sets him down. "I hope it's to your liking."

"Knowing you, I'm sure it's terrible," Mantis jokes.

He'd childishly hoped they'd be sharing a room, but he guesses it just doesn't work that way. They may be old friends, but they're also boss and subordinate, not a couple of preteens having a slumber party. Or lovers, for that matter.

He nearly chokes on his own spit at that last thought.

Don't even _start_ thinking like that, he tells himself harshly. Just be grateful he likes you at all. Besides, it's not as if you can even give him what he needs. Leave that to people who actually know how to be human.

Some of his unease leaks over into Eli's mind. "You okay?" he asks Mantis.

"Just tired."

Eli pats his back kindly. "You'll be able to sleep off all that jet lag in a minute here. I told Hyrax and Swan to keep their idiotic music turned down."

Irritation flares from him as he mentions Swan's name. Curious, Mantis runs a casual scan of his memories.

It seems that hours ago, while preparing for Mantis's arrival, he wound up having to break up a fight between Swan and another soldier. In the heat of the moment, Swan pulled a knife on him.

Pulled. A knife. On Eli.

In that instant it doesn't matter that Eli easily avoided injury and subdued him. Mantis fixates, violently, on the fact that this—this _nothing_ threatened his only real friend and got off the hook with nothing worse than a swear-laced warning.

Eli helps install Mantis in his nice new quarters and wishes him good night, but Mantis is no longer at all tired.

\----------

"Seriously, man?" Half-asleep, Swan pokes his head down to glare at Hyrax in the bottom bunk. He still feels like a dick about losing control earlier and the last thing he wants is for it to look like he's ignoring orders just to stir shit. "Turn that—"

He blinks, squints in the dark. Hyrax is snoozing away.

Where's that music coming from?

It's loud and clear enough to be playing from somewhere in the room, but the power light on the radio is off.

He climbs down from the top bunk, slowly, as if in a trance.

He's halfway down the hall before he even starts to question why he left the room, but his feet keep up their steady pace, unbidden by him.

Jesus, this song is creepy. Why didn't he notice that before? He wants to turn back.

He can't.

Goosebumps prick his flesh in chilly waves. There's... _something_ following him. He can't hear it or see it but he knows it's there, the same way you just _know_ things in a nightmare.

Swan's feet carry him down a poorly-lit corridor with a few storage closets that almost never get used. He opens his mouth to shout in surprise at the sight that greets him, but it's like his vocal cords are glued together.

His older sister, a kind middle-school science teacher who has no business being on a military base, stumbles toward him out of the darkness. Swan sees the look on her face and knows she's running from something.

Just as she reaches him, her face bursts open like a popped grape.

"Help me," she pleads, the words distorted sickeningly, and crumples at his feet. He gapes at her in disbelieving horror.

More people emerge like wraiths from the shadows at the end of the hall: his mom, who shouldered God knows how much overtime at her waitress job to put him and his sister through college; Hyrax, whose relentless sense of humor got them both through some shitty times in Basic, who listened patiently whenever he needed someone to rant to. Swan is forced to stand silent and watch as, one after another, everyone he cares about dies horrifically, begging him for help he can't give.

-

Mantis observes Swan's broken weeping with grim satisfaction.

Eventually he runs out of loved ones to use against him, and with a careless flick of his thoughts slits him open from sternum to pelvis, sending his steaming guts uncoiling across the cold metal floor.

He touches his chin as he considers the body. It seems somehow insufficient to just kill him and be done with it.

So take it a step further. Desecrate the corpse.

Even as the idea insinuates itself into his head like a thread of smoke, he realizes he's been absentmindedly groping himself through the front of his pants.

It's far from the first time his body has had this kind of reaction to heavy gore. Usually he would just wait to take care of it alone, but...

With his powers he flips the body on its back. He drifts down to straddle its mangled waist.

"Unfortunate," he mutters as he unzips his pants.

Swan's entrails are still deliciously warm when Mantis slides in. He hunches forward, seizes the ex-soldier's shoulders for leverage and unceremoniously begins fucking his exposed guts with savage, graceless snaps of his gaunt hips. A feral snarl builds in his throat. The heat and slickness are excellent, but more pleasurable still is the knowledge that he has the power to unleash hell on anyone who lays a finger on Eli—who even dares to _think_ about it—and who could hope to resist him?

Mantis grits his crooked teeth in a vicious grin and looks straight into Swan's dead eyes as he fouls his corpse.

He lets his hips give a few more weak twitches before pulling out, the tip of his softening cock dripping thick strings of a repulsive mix of gore and seed. Grimacing, he wipes it off on Swan's pants leg and zips himself back in.

Oh, how he can't wait to show his boss how useful he can be. Like one of his own fires, anticipation burns bright within him—and with it an unfamiliar sense of... of completeness. Because now he knows exactly what he wants to do with the rest of his life. His protective instinct toward Eli floods his entire being, takes unyielding hold of every cell, scours away every trace of doubt that _this_ is what he was born to do.

At last, he thinks.

Purpose.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ _Psychomantis_ is a real genus](http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/TaxBrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=303802), and a member of the same family as the orchid mantis _Hymenopus_. i guess we already knew mantis was a fuckin nerd but wow


End file.
